


Set Down Your Tools

by entanglednow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bloodplay, Community: kink_bingo, Knifeplay, M/M, Obedience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-10
Updated: 2010-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 12:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dream always starts the same way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Set Down Your Tools

The dream always starts the same way.

Dean's running, though he's never certain whether he's chasing something or whether he's the one being chased. He's running hard, the slam of his boots into dirt almost fast enough to tip him over and send him sprawling. The crack and lash of branches against his arms and face is barely more than a sting in the darkness. Not important enough to stop him, or slow him. Though he's fairly sure the trickle on his face isn't water. He doesn't know where he's running to, or what he's running from. All he knows for sure is that he's running with _purpose._ He's running like his life depends on it.

He always ends up at the barn, at the wide high doors, cracked and dusty when he lays his hands on them. He's breathing loud and hard, breathing like he's run all night, lungs burning, legs aching and unsteady underneath him. He'll spread his fingers and push at the doors without worrying, or wondering what's inside.

They open easily, always. Like he's supposed to be here, supposed to do this.

He doesn't want to go inside. Even though he knows, somehow, in some way, that he needs to. He stays in the open doorway instead, teeth clenched, fingers dug into the wood like he can grip it tight and keep himself there by willpower alone.

Dean ends up inside anyway, like time has skipped ahead without his permission. He's left standing before the flat walls that are painted and over-painted with more symbols than he's ever seen, a mess of red and black. Smears and hard lines, curves and splashes with _purpose_. It's all different flavours of darkness and intent and he doesn't remember it being like this, doesn't remember why he knows everything's wrong.

The barn is freezing cold. Colder than the sharp night air outside, cold enough to see his breath. Like something has leeched all the warmth out of it. He can feel the air like pinpricks of ice on his skin.

Dean doesn't want to be here. Because this is wrong. This isn't how it went. This isn't how it _goes._

The place echoes like it's a hundred times bigger, like it's deeper than it should be, all corners and edges that he can't see.

"Dean." The voice is behind him, deep enough that sometimes it doesn't quite feel real.

Dean stops in the middle of the floor, staring into the darkness at the back of the barn. He knows if he turns around Castiel will be behind him, in the same place as the first time. The same place where this all began. He'll be the Castiel he was at the beginning. That cold, strange, threatening _thing_ he didn't trust. But Dean doesn't turn around, he listens to the sound of shoes on stone instead. Until they stop a breath behind him and there's nothing but the creeping line of sweat that's making its way down the back of his neck.

When he bows his head forward the wall's too close, sharp with the smell of damp and old paint. Another skip forward in time, because he doesn’t remember moving, doesn't remember when Castiel touched him, the curl of steel fingers round his shoulder. His coat's gone, the leather cast away somewhere and the cold has already seeped into his bare arms and across the back of his neck.

"Cas." It always comes out questioning.

"Quiet," Castiel says firmly, voice rough like he expects to be obeyed. As if Dean is a tool to be used. As if he's nothing but skin and bones and blood.

There's a hand on the back of his head, fingertips pressed in so hard Dean knows he'll be able to feel the ache they leave behind. Castiel holds his face against the wall, cold seeping in until his cheek feels numb. He swallows and breathes out, leaving the stone damp. Dean knows what's coming, knows what will happen if he stays against the wall. If he doesn’t fight. But when Castiel's hand slides free he holds himself there, holds himself still.

"You know why you're here." It's more of a command than a question. As if it's his own fault, his own choices which brought him here.

Dean nods, because that's what he's supposed to do, that's what he does. There's a rush of noise in his head. It drowns out the rustle of cloth as Castiel draws what he's been hiding out from beneath his coat. Dean presses his fingers into the wall, feels the flakes of old paint and the roughness of dried blood on the stone.

The metal of the blade is warm and that's wrong, wrong when Dean knows it should be as cold and lifeless as the wall. But instead it's warm and sharp and leaves a prickle of sensation when it drags on his skin under the shirt. When Castiel uses it to carve away the cloth in pieces and leave him vulnerable to the ice of the air. It shouldn't be able to slice through denim, shouldn't be able to carve it clean through until it's slipping away in pieces. Digging through the leather of his boots until his feet are pressed bare against the stone. And there are lines that he can still feel, lines where the knife touched his skin, scraped sensitive and raw.

"Be still," Castiel says. Though he doesn't remember moving.

Dean knows what's coming. He knows and it draws all the breath up his throat in a rush. He can't hold it, can't stop it from coming out in quick, hard bursts. He doesn't know if he should struggle, if he should resist, but his body has already decided to fight for its life. Castiel's hand on the back of his neck is warm. But there's a casual, effortless brutality about the grip of his fingers and every ragged exhale draws the angel closer, encourages the fingers tighter. Until Dean is forced still, forced quiet.

And if feels more like surrender than capitulation.

"Cas, please."

He can't see, can't judge where the knife is and his entire back tenses at the first touch.

The metal is sharp, sharp enough to cut clean when it slides across the meat of his back. It's a sensation that starts as shock and then blossoms into pain. Dean knows he's bleeding, he can feel the run of it down his back, the sharp metal tang of it on the air and he's pressing back into Castiel's hand, resisting it and not caring how impossible that is. Not caring that Castiel is too strong to push against.

The knife digs in deeper and he's breathing out in harsh, strangled gusts, voice breaking on the angel's name. Though he never once says stop.

Castiel's hands are warm where they settle on him, rounding the curve of his shoulder and the shaking length of his arm, tipping and stretching his skin so he can cut into it, fine curves and small, hard lines. Words and symbols written into the meat of him.

The pain is a distant thing now, a slow, steady slice-pull of sensation that swells and flows through him with an aching simplicity. He can hear the slow drip and tap of blood that falls from every rounded curve. He can feel the snake-trails that flow from his shoulders and calves, winding lower from his heels to the damp chill of the floor. The blood flows down as the cold creeps up, and he can't help thinking that they'll meet in the middle and stop his heart. The idea should be terrifying. But Dean can't think past Castiel's palm on his lower back. Past the separation of skin and the low, steady murmur of words from Castiel's mouth, cut through here and there with his name. Heavy and warm where it breaks free. Like Castiel is making him something new.

"Cas." Dean's voice is softer than it should be. Not angry, though he thinks he should be, thinks he needs to be before he's lost to something he can't name. He should be fighting. But it's so deathly quiet, like the world's balanced somewhere precarious.

"Turn around." Castiel's close enough for the words to be warm in his ear.

Dean's hands shift without question. Pushing him back from the stone, feet turning him awkwardly on the dampness of the floor, and red shines between his toes and the arch of his left foot.

Castiel fingers are bright and wet with Dean's own blood when they catch his jaw, when they turn his face to look at him.

The Castiel that looks back at him is not the Castiel that Dean knows. The angel's eyes are older than he's ever seen them, all narrow, alien shades of blue that are bright and freezing and nothing Dean can understand. This is pure Castiel, purposeful and righteous.

Castiel knows him, knows every inch of him, every place that's broken, everything that's closed up with messy stitches, or layered over with denial. He knows because he remade every part in perfect clarity. He saw what Dean was, everything that he was and he fitted every one of them back together to make Dean whole.

Castiel sees everything and he stays, he has faith, he finds him worthy.

He tips Dean's head down and presses their mouths together. It's barely the length of a breath. It's a blessing and a promise.

But Dean has a shaking hand in his hair, defying this cold distance, risking his fury, to pull him in again.

The second time their mouths meet it's not a blessing, it's rough and human.

"You're going to destroy me," Castiel says fiercely. Which only makes Dean's fingers wind tighter, because destroying things is something he understands.

Castiel growls into his mouth and shoves him back into the wall. Dean's hard noise of pain is swallowed by the angel. His quiet, dragged-out hitches at the scrape and dig on the open wounds go the same way.

He's leaving a print of whatever Castiel has carved into him, a mirror image on the wall behind him, and the cold burns on the cuts the angel has made. It burns in a pattern, all the way through him like fire.

The hand that still holds the knife lifts and this is the first time that Dean sees it. The bright unreal silver of it, shaped in a way that's unique, in a way that's angel. He knows the blade is Castiel's, knows it's a part of him.

But Castiel lets it fall, lets it hit the stone and fling tiny droplets of Dean's blood against the surface.

His hands find Dean's waist instead, holding him careful but firm, like he's something fragile and precious he's not allowed, something he's supposed to be watching, supposed to be guarding.

Not keeping for himself.

Castiel's thumbs are hard where they dig and press into the fragile skin over Dean's hipbones, testing where he's vulnerable, where he's human. He breathes against the red fingerprints he's left on Dean's jaw and throat. Mouth a curve of softness for all that his eyes are iron hard.

Dean's shaking and it's not pain. Body weak and electric, fingers scratching at the cold damp of the wall behind him, breathing into Castiel's face.

Castiel's hand moves inwards, catches the hard, curving line of his cock, leaves wet lines of blood there when it shifts and pulls, slow and purposeful.

Dean's drowning in the sensation, hips trying to push into the angel's fist.

"Say my name," Castiel says simply.

"Cas." It comes out cracked, confused, but reverent.

"Say my name," Castiel says again. There's anger under there, and insistence.

Dean knows what he wants.

"Castiel," Dean manages, too low, too soft. It's full and strange in his mouth. But there's a hum of approval. The movement of the angel's hand is quicker now, fingers tightening.

"Tell me you're mine." Castiel's voice is so low it feels like a vibration in his blood.

Dean loses his inhale in a rush. "You already know that I am, Jesus, Cas."

He can't stop himself reacting to that, air falling out of him and he's groaning into the edge of Castiel's jaw, coming over his fingers.

The lines on Dean's back run hot and it hurts, it fucking hurts, sharp enough that he has to sway away from the stone. Castiel makes low, soft noises against his skin the hand on Dean's waist is still warm, fingertips drifting over the lowest of the cuts he's made. Brief, hot pricks of pain under the rush of it. While Castiel's other hand brings him down from the edge in slow twisting pulls.

Dean knows that the angel has carved his name and his purpose into his skin, opened him up and claimed him for himself.

Protection, or blasphemy and Dean doesn't care, he honestly doesn’t even care which.


End file.
